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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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The journey of the U.S. fuel cycle
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
While most big journeys begin with a clear objective, they rarely start with an exact knowledge of the route. When commissioning the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson didn’t provide specific “turn right at the big mountain” directions to the Corps of Discovery. He gave goal-oriented instructions: explore the Missouri River, find its source, search for a transcontinental water route to the Pacific, and build scientific and cultural knowledge along the way.
Jefferson left it up to Lewis and Clark to turn his broad, geopolitically motivated guidance into gritty reality.
Similarly, U.S. nuclear policy has begun a journey toward closing the U.S. nuclear fuel cycle. There is a clear signal of support for recycling from the Trump administration, along with growing bipartisan excitement in Congress. Yet the precise path remains unclear.
Young-Jong Chung, Hee-Kyung Kim, Hee-Cheol Kim, Sung-Quun Zee
Nuclear Technology | Volume 153 | Number 1 | January 2006 | Pages 41-52
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT06-A3688
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The system-integrated modular advanced reactor (SMART) new phase (SMART-P) with a rated thermal power of 65.5 MW is currently being developed at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. It is an innovative design to achieve a high degree of safety by adopting inherent safety-improving features and passive safety systems. Realistic and conservative calculations and a parameter study for a steam-line pipe break have been carried out by means of the TASS/SMR code. A set of transients for the whole system of SMART-P is investigated from the point of view of fuel integrity. The results of the analyses show that the most conservative initial conditions are thermal design flow, high system pressure, high coolant temperature, and high core power. It is also assumed that off-site power is unavailable and the steam section pipe guillotine break with the least reactive control rod assembly stuck out in the fully withdrawn position is a limiting case under the most moderator density reactivity condition. The SMART-P safety systems function properly and thus secure the reactor to a safe condition with respect to the safety parameters such as the critical heat flux ratio and the pressure. Natural circulation is well established in the primary and passive residual heat removal systems and is enough to ensure a stable plant shutdown condition after a reactor trips.